Lynnville, Ind., turns out to celebrate Tecumseh's state softball title

Team overcame 'rocky start' to win championship

DANIEL R. PATMORE / Courier & Press correspondent
Members of Tecumseh High School's girls softball team ride down Main Street in Elberfeld, Ind., after celebrating their Class A State Championship at the Tecumseh gym Sunday afternoon.

LYNNVILLE, Ind. - Gordon Wood didn't celebrate right away when his Tecumseh Braves softball team won its second state title in three years Saturday night.

"I just sat there for the first couple minutes and took a couple of deep breaths," said the coach after a championship rally in the Tecumseh High School gym Sunday.

"Every ballgame we had from the first game to the end only got tougher and tougher. We didn't blow anybody out. It was a fight all the way 'til the end," he said.

Tecumseh defeated Lakewood Park Christian 5-1 to win the state Class A softball title. Wood, his assistant coaches and the team celebrated Saturday in Indianapolis, but they did more celebrating Sunday at the school's gym. About 250 residents from this northern Warrick County town joined them.

"This is very exciting for a small community like this," assistant coach Brian Beard said.

The team is no stranger to success. They've been Indiana High School Athletic Association sectional champions for 11 of the last 12 seasons. Since Wood became coach in 2007, the girls have been to the state championship game four times. The only year they didn't go, 2010, they were one win away from getting there.

"I guarantee you that there are a lot of coaches in Indiana that would love to have just one of those years," Beard to the fans at the rally, most of whom sported Braves paraphernalia.

But success was not easy this year. The team lost three of it's first six games and just had "a real rocky start," said Kayley Pemberton, a senior who played first base.

A meeting was called, the girls "worked it out," Pemberton said, and they only lost four games out of 25 for the rest of the season.

"We started to hate losing," Pemberton said.

In addition to loathing losing, the stellar play of freshman pitcher Tiffany Summers helped turn the tide. She led the team with 25 RBIs, had a sub-2.00 ERA and had 210 strikeouts.

Her initial goal, which Wood makes every player write and sign like contracts, was to have 75 strikeouts.

"About a third of the way through the season, I told her she might have to change her goal because she already met it," Wood said.

But according to coach Wood, talent wasn't the main factor in his team's success.

"Is this the most talented team I've ever coached? Sorry girls, you're not," he said.

"But you have been the hardest working team, the most determined team, the team that would not die (and) a hustling, scrappy, fearless team with a lot of heart," he said

Even before Wood, whose teams have a 26-3 record in the postseason, became head coach five years ago, the Tecumseh softball team had shown its prowess, reaching the state finals in 2000 and 2003.

"People expect us to win," said Wood, citing the effort the junior high school softball coaches put into preparing their players. "Last year when we finished in the top four, there wasn't any celebration."

Seven of this year's nine starters are returning next year, Pemberton said.